A man who beat a 61-year-old Federal Way resident in 2020, causing his death, has been sentenced to 17 years in prison.
Francis Kamu Mackenzie, 33, was sentenced June 13 to 204 months in prison for second-degree murder stemming from a Feb. 3, 2020, incident in the parking lot of Arbor Woods Apartments, 1800 S. 330th St., where he assaulted a 61-year-old man, Jong Hwa Hyun, causing injuries that led to his death five months later.
Mackenzie was also sentenced to 17 months in prison, to run at the same time as the 17-year sentence, for an assault he committed against a 30-year-old man a few hours before the assault that caused Hyun’s death.
Additionally, for a jail assault against a corrections officer in July 2020, Mackenzie was sentenced to 12 months in prison, to run at the same time as the other two sentences, for custodial assault. According to documents, corrections officers were searching cells because they had found homemade alcohol the day prior, and then, after a seemingly normal conversation, Mackenzie began assaulting an officer, who ultimately suffered multiple injuries and had no memory of the assault.
According to statements at the sentencing from prosecutor Terence Carlstrom, Mackenzie had an offender score of three — therefore, his sentencing range for second-degree murder was between 154 and 254 months. According to Carlstrom, the state and the defense jointly recommended that Mackenzie serve the mid-range sentence of 204 months.
According to statements given at the sentencing by Mackenzie’s attorney, Claire Sullivan, Mackenzie was adopted and grew up in American Samoa, and at age 17, he joined the military. She said that following the military, he began exhibiting mental health symptoms that were not adequately addressed.
Sullivan said that when he committed the assaults, Mackenzie was not in control of reality, and the man he was that day is not who he is, now that he’s addressed his mental health.
“I’m sorry, please forgive me. I was in a psychosis state of mind. Now that I’m on the right medication, I feel like a whole different person,” Mackenzie said at his sentencing. “I feel like who I was originally. I didn’t mean to hurt anybody.”
Details of the case
At about 6:27 p.m. Feb. 3, 2020, an officer was at the hospital for an unrelated incident when the 30-year-old man’s boss was at the hospital with the man, and reported that the 30-year-old had been assaulted at the Arbor Woods Apartments. According to documents, the 30-year-old man had injuries to his face, including his eyes that were swollen shut, and his face was covered in blood. Documents stated that after the assault, the 30-year-old man called his boss asking for help.
According to documents, at about 9:42 p.m., an officer was at the Arbor Woods Apartments investigating the earlier assault when two women were yelling, asking for help next to an injured man. The man was subsequently identified as Hyun.
Hyun’s wife was waiting for Hyun to come home when she heard sounds of yelling outside her window. Hyun’s wife said that she then saw Hyun being assaulted by a large white man. According to documents, the large white man attacked Hyun, rendering him unconscious on the ground, left, returned to attack Hyun and returned once more to attack Hyun for the last time. Following the third attack, the large white man stole Hyun’s phone and wallet, documents stated.
According to documents, after the assault, Hyun was in critical condition with injuries that included internal bleeding of the brain and multiple skull fractures. On July 20, 2020, Hyun died, and the King County Medical Examiner ruled that his death had been caused by and was in direct relation to the injuries to his brain on the day of the assault. Mackenzie’s charges were then upgraded from second-degree assault to second-degree murder.
